Wednesday, April 23, 2025
Human Rights in Hong Kong: Navigating Challenges and Resilience
DCFR Global Speaker Series
Speaker: Kelley Loper
Date: Wednesday, April 23, 2025
Time: 5:00 pm – 8:30 pm
Location: Central Denver Location (Please register for specific location details)
Description of Event
The headlines warn of democratic backsliding, but what does it truly mean for individuals, communities, and the future of human rights? Professor Kelley Loper, drawing on her profound experiences in Hong Kong, will cut through the noise, offering DCFR attendees a vital understanding of the growing repression in China and the critical role international law can play in shaping our response.
Before moving to Denver last year to become the director of the Ved Nanda Center for International & Comparative Law, Kelley Loper lived and worked in Hong Kong for nearly 30 years. During that time, as a professor of international human rights law at the University of Hong Kong and while working with civil society organizations, she had a front row seat to dramatic political and legal transformations.
In the waning years of British colonial rule before the 1997 handover to Chinese sovereignty, she observed the last British governor’s eleventh-hour democratic reforms and their quick dismantling by China. In the 28 years since, Hong Kong has endured numerous other threats to China’s promise that Hong Kong would enjoy a “high degree of autonomy.”
Professor Loper witnessed the demonstrations of 2019, when students from her university and others in Hong Kong marched through the streets protesting the lack of democracy and clampdown on freedoms in the city. In response, China imposed a sweeping National Security Law that led to a rapid deterioration of human rights. Despite these changes, some local judges, lawyers, and activists have carved out pockets of resilience that have helped maintain elements of Hong Kong’s judicial independence and tradition of civil society advocacy. She maintains her ties to the city and returns frequently to stay up to date with current developments.
Agenda of Event
5:00 pm ~ Cocktails and networking
6:00 pm ~ Start dinner seating
6:05 pm ~ Brief welcome / Dinner service starts
6:50 pm ~ Speaker Introduction
7:30 pm ~ Audience questions
8:00 pm ~ Ending Announcements by DCFR
Bio of Speaker
Kelley Loper is a professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law and the director of the Ved Nanda Center for International and Comparative Law. She also sits on the advisory board of the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality and Anti-Discrimination Law and the international advisory board of the Centre for Comparative and Public Law (CCPL) at the University of Hong Kong. Before joining the Sturm College of Law in February 2024, she was an associate professor and the director of the LLM in Human Rights Programme in the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong. She also served as the director of the Centre for Comparative and Public Law from 2017-2019 and was co-editor-in-chief of the Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law from 2012-2024.
Her scholarship centers on the implementation of international human rights law in domestic contexts, especially Hong Kong, mainland China, and other Asian jurisdictions. She has published on several related topics including: human rights and refugee protection in Asia, the rights to education and legal capacity in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination, dignity as a constitutional value, and gender constitutionalism. She has taught courses on international human rights law, comparative equality law, international refugee law, the national protection of human rights, and human rights research methods.
In addition to her academic work, she has also served on the boards of the Hong Kong Dignity Institute, the Hong Kong Refugee Advice Centre (as past chairperson), Justice Centre Hong Kong, and Amnesty International (Hong Kong). She has advised various other organizations including the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, UN Women, and Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor on a range of issues and has made submissions before the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
*Please visit our Global Affairs Speaker Dinenrs page to learn about our policies.
